A semi-recent survey of philosophy faculty confirmed what many of us already know: we teach a TON of students every year who are non-majors. While a few of these students may show up already curious about all of the wonderful things we’re about to teach them, many of them understandably need a bit more convincing. In my own on-going efforts to reach students across disciplines, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about curiosity and how it can benefit us and our students to make growth in curiosity a key outcome for our introductory courses.
Why Curiosity?
When asked what it is about philosophy that faculty most want their general education students to come away from their philosophy courses valuing, the most highly rated items were intellectual virtues and philosophical questions. Curiosity is one place where these two aspects of philosophy converge: it’s the virtue that pushes us to wonder and ask questions.
There are obvious pedagogical benefits to generating curiosity in the classroom. In his book on educating for intellectual virtues, Jason Baehr describes curiosity as “the fundamental motivating virtue,” responsible for “getting the learning process started and headed in the right direction.” When we’re curious about something, we have greater intrinsic motivation to learn about it. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise then that curiosity can also be linked to greater pleasure in learning and improved memory of what is learned.
Beyond our classrooms though, helping students develop a more general disposition to wonder and want to know more about themselves and the world around them is something that will serve them not just as learners but also as lifelong thinkers, professionals, and human beings. Someone who is curious will theoretically be more apt to notice more of their own unexamined assumptions, engage other people and perspectives with genuine interest, and pursue a wider range of questions and solutions.
When talking to my students about curiosity I tell them that it can be a way of moving through frustration with things we don’t understand. When Socrates tells us in Plato’s Theaetetus that philosophy begins in wonder, the Greek word that gets translated as wonder can apparently also be translated as puzzlement or perplexity. There are lots of things that can perplex us—a difficult text, organic chemistry, Reviewer 2, other people’s political commitments, etc. Ideally, we would relish confusion as a welcome challenge and opportunity for growth and learning. But of course it’s frustrating not to understand something, and it may cause us to be grumpy instead, or want to give up and put marshmallows in our ears. Learning how to ask good questions and respond to these challenges with curiosity gives us another option.
Teaching Curiosity
How do we help our students become more curious—not just about what we’re doing in philosophy but also about themselves, their education, their own beliefs and assumptions, other people, and the world around them?
The most immediate response to is to create more opportunities for students to practice wonder and curiosity in the classroom.
For example, to introduce my intro students to the discipline of philosophy during the first week of class, I’ve started having them brainstorm things that they wonder about. It’s admittedly cliché, but typically I will put up a photo of the night sky and ask them to take two minutes or so to write down whatever they wonder about while looking up at the sky or this photo of it or whenever they just have time to think and wonder. I then ask them to tell me some of the things they wrote down, and I type everything they say onto the screen.
They come up with so many questions — everything from why they are here, what they should be doing with their lives, to whether God exists, whether there is life on other planets, or whether snakes can wear pants. This gives me the opportunity to talk to them about how their different questions connect to philosophy and what we’ll be studying in class. Many of their questions do end up being philosophical ones, and I’m able to let them know when we’ll be addressing their questions directly or indirectly throughout the course. For questions that fall into other disciplines, I use this to help distinguish what philosophers are doing differently and what kind of questions philosophers might ask about the same topic. This activity tells me a lot about my students’ interests and helps me think about how to frame course questions and material in ways that speak to things they’re already curious about. It also helps to pique their interest in some philosophical topics and set the tone as a course where we’re going to be asking a lot of questions.
I’ve also found it useful to find out what students wonder about a particular topic at the beginning of a new unit. For instance, to start off a unit on wisdom and knowledge, I had students brainstorm things they wondered about wisdom, knowledge, and truth. Throughout the unit I was able to show them how readings they initially thought were pretty out there (Descartes’ Meditations, for instance) are actually connected to questions they themselves were asking.
Another strategy is to explicitly talk to students about curiosity and have them reflect on its value as an intellectual or moral virtue. I’ve found question brainstorming useful here as well. For instance, after a reading or discussion on curiosity, I’ve given students a series of images and asked them to think of as many questions about each image as they can. Typically I try to give them images that include something unexpected or that invite questions (Colossal is a great resource for this). My goals with this activity are to get them into the mindset of questioning and have them reflect on the experience of being curious.
When debriefing with students about this activity, they usually find that they enjoy asking questions (curiosity can be fun) and that different people notice different things and ask different questions (it’s valuable to have multiple perspectives). Doing this activity with students and with faculty at AAPT and Teaching Hub workshops has also impressed upon me the degree to which asking questions requires courage and intellectual humility, effort, attention to detail, time, and motivation/interest. These observations also highlight some of the obstacles to cultivating curiosity in and outside the classroom.
After debriefing, I have students do another activity aimed at applying the same practice of generating questions to a text. Instead of an image, I give them a quotation from their next reading. I try to use something that’s difficult but not completely impenetrable. For example, in a course where their next reading was from JoséMedina’s Epistemology of Resistance, I gave them the quotation, “As we just saw, sometimes there is ignorance out of luxury — when one does not need to know. But sometimes there is also ignorance out of necessity — when one needs not to know. There is not needing to know and there is needing not to know.” Then I ask students to think of as many questions as possible about the quote.
This tends to be more challenging and admittedly less fun for students than the image brainstorming. But my goal here is to start demonstrating how curiosity can serve them as readers and help them to ask questions that will move them from confusion and frustration (and giving up) to comprehension, analysis, and even more interesting questions. A study of reading strategies by Stephen Bloch-Schulman showed that advanced philosophers ask different types of questions than others do while reading but also that they just ask way more questions while reading in general. This activity creates an opportunity for to model for students the kind and quantity of questions philosophers ask while reading.
To reinforce the practice of asking questions as they read, I revisit this activity throughout the semester. For instance, if students are stuck on a difficult passage I’ll have them pause and brainstorm questions. Additionally, I may have students brainstorm questions about the title or first page of their next reading, which has the added benefit of building curiosity about the reading. I have also had students keep a question journal throughout the semester where they record things they looked up from each reading (terms, people, places, ideas, pronunciations, etc.) and questions about each reading. (This assignment is an adapted version of Kristina Grob’s Daily Writing Assignments, which she’ll be presenting on as part of the Teaching Hub at the upcoming APA Pacific.) Having students complete periodic journal analyses can also help them notice how their questions change or develop over the course of the semester.
A final suggestion is to practice curiosity about our students. What are the things that they wonder about? What are their motivations, goals, or aspirations? What are the things about our courses that perplex them?
These are some of my ideas, but I’m curious to hear yours as well! How do you teach curiosity in your courses?
Merritt Rehn-DeBraal
Merritt Rehn-DeBraal is a lecturer in philosophy and co-coordinator of the Women’s and Gender Studies minor at Texas A&M University, San Antonio. Her research interests include social/political philosophy, feminist philosophy, and philosophies of sexual violence.
Thanks for this, this is so great!!